What's The Fun Part In Geocaching?

[+Team Gryarvold]

 

... snagging the cache and chatting with the guests, grabbing the cache from a nearby tree in a cemetary while a funeral was going on ten feet away and many more memorable experiences like that, and never being noticed by the muggles!

 

 

ooh, you have just engaged my twisted sense of humor! How's this for "different flavor of ice cream"?

Well known, respected geocacher passes away. the time and place of the visitation is announced and posted as an event cache: OPEN CASKET - with a small or micro in the tuxedo pocket! All the muggles respecting your 'privacy' as you pay your last respects - by signing his log! I know, a little macabre and morbid, but, for my funeral, I want people to have a smile on their face. Don't mourn my death, celebrate my life!

 

What I haven't figured out is what to do with the cache log? Do we bury it with the Geocacher? Aaah, funerals, what fun!!!!

 

Yes a smile on their face is worth it. I would say bury and then have everybody post their logs on the cache page. You can then print that out and put it in a scrap book.

 

Since I want to be cremated I will have to come up with something to go with that. Have the cache hunt before the cremation or after, will my ashes be involved in the caches or just the log? I will have to ponder this some more.

[+Kit Fox]

I like to place devious, hand crafted micros, but I place them in interesting spots.

 

Everybody has that.... I like to use a simple rule of thumb when I place a cache: Would I visit this location if I was not geocaching? IMHO, we should all try to make the experience of finding a cache fun for the finder in some way. If you've done this long enough you'll reach a point where just getting a smiley isn't fun....

 

I think Jeremy came up with a better litmus test, "If a TV documentary was being filmed on geocaching, would you want to take the film crew to see your cache? If the answer is no, look for a better spot."

 

A great resource is using the bookmark feature,to warn potential cachers of caches with "problems."

[TSPALLONE]

Maybe I'm just a simp but, I like following my GPS, wherever it takes me. However, once I'm at the predetermined location, if it's more than a cursory look to find the cache, I get annoyed.

 

In other words, put a cache at the top of Mt. Everest and I'm going. But, when I get to the top, I'd better see that thing purched right on top of a snow mound.

 

If I gotta dig, I'll be pissed!

[+ADK 46-R]

How about the old ammo storage tunnels under an abandoned military fort, where the dark and filthy passageways are cluttered with garbage, broken liquor bottles, empty syringes, the dark stinky hallways filled with goth kids smoking pot, taggers spraying every available vertical surface with graffiti, and gaunt-faced, hollow-eyed people in filthy clothing looking for quick sex? Oh, and mugggers and drug dealers lurking on the filthy pathway outside the entrances to the tunnels...

 

please...post the coordinates to such a paradise...

[+zahadoom]

. . .it should be located in a place that the majority of people would enjoy visiting.

Uh oh... we may have missed something in some of our hides; it may be back to the drawing boards for us! Now I am worried. . .

• How about the rusty iron understructure beneath an abandoned railroad bridge in the wilderness, your body clinging to a girder twenty feet below the bridge deck and 110 feet above the river gorge below?
  
• How about climbing to an elevation of 9,800 feet and then crawling deep into the belly of an ancient mountain in the face of a raging waterfall?
  

Uhhh ohhh, spaghettios. . .!

 

I liked these 2, they sound like they could be fun.

[+sbell111]

Aren't the forums the fun part of geocaching?

[+leather-man]

My first hide has spoiled me. I have carried an ammo can around caching for 2 days and 14+ miles looking for just the right spot. I had a three spots picked out, one was archived and the other two turned out to be "not so special" once I began looking for the hiding place.

 

It's way more challenging finding a great spot to hide compared to finding the caches that are in great spots.

I don't really mind the cache spew in the area parks we have around here but I don't want to add to it in any way. There are some weekends when I need to pick up 5 or 6 caches to make up for weekends I have to take off and the "filled" parks around here make that possible.

 

Looks like an early morning outing on Father's Day to check out one more place on my list. It has a great 2000' lookout but it's been years since I've been there and I wasn't looking for a hiding place back then.

 

Finding that spot, that's the most Fun Part for me.

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

How about the old ammo storage tunnels under an abandoned military fort, where the dark and filthy passageways are cluttered with garbage, broken liquor bottles, empty syringes, the dark stinky hallways filled with goth kids smoking pot, taggers spraying every available vertical surface with graffiti, and gaunt-faced, hollow-eyed people in filthy clothing looking for quick sex? Oh, and mugggers and drug dealers lurking on the filthy pathway outside the entrances to the tunnels...

 

please...post the coordinates to such a paradise...

Here ya go...

 

Psycho Urban Cache #10 - Derelict Grunge Acroplois

 

Enjoy! You will love it!

[+hikergps]

I don't get too excited about urban caches, large or small. I do like the more difficult caches, although I usually don't have much time to go find them. More difficult for me is in the terrain rating. I don't like puzzles. I do like day-long hikes to reach a cache. I have a database in GSAK that I use to keep track of caches and remote benchmarks that catch my eye. I call it my "Wishlist". I keep my list realistic, only saving gpx files of caches that for me are doable.

 

I'm not much of a swag hunter, and to me micros are not fun. I like ammo cans or larger containers for the larger logbooks. It's interesting to sit down and read the history of the cache while you are sitting there looking at what the hider wanted you to see. Being able to read other people's experiences that they wrote in the logbook when it was sunny, raining, snowing, blowing, whatever gives you a more complete picture of why the cache is there in the first place.

 

If I hike to a cache that has nothing inside it but a logbook full of heartfelt and descriptive logs of cacher's experiences getting there, that is a good trip. If I take the same hike to see a logbook full of "traded mccrap for mcrap, tftc!", that is a bummer.

 

I rarely put in my online logs the same amount of personal feeling that I do into the actual logbook. I only want to share those feelings with those that worked as hard as I did to reach the cache, not with someone just surfing cache pages. I realize that this deprives the cache owner of a good log on their cache page, but when the owner does cache maintence, replaces the log book, then starts reading that logbook they will see how I felt about the cache. You just can't put many descriptors of a cache hunt down on a logbook in a micro.

 

For me, that is Geocaching. Logbooks are fun.

 

edit to fix missed spelling error in proofread

Edited June 18, 2006 by hikergps

[+One of the Texas Vikings]

How about the old ammo storage tunnels under an abandoned military fort, where the dark and filthy passageways are cluttered with garbage, broken liquor bottles, empty syringes, the dark stinky hallways filled with goth kids smoking pot, taggers spraying every available vertical surface with graffiti, and gaunt-faced, hollow-eyed people in filthy clothing looking for quick sex? Oh, and mugggers and drug dealers lurking on the filthy pathway outside the entrances to the tunnels...

 

please...post the coordinates to such a paradise...

 

You better not be posting the coordinates to my Ex-wife's house !!!!!!!!!!

 

Her lawyer will get you (trust me)

[+Bluesman63]

i hate caches that you have to walk like 3 miles to. around me there are some that say it a nice 4.5 mile round trip or something like that. i just don't have the time for those.

 

Those are my favorites. Can't beat a nice hike with a great view and a smiley to show for it. Much more enjoyable than a park and grab.

[+brodiebunch]

Could someone post the waypoint for a micro cache that is a film container hidden in a bush in the parking lot of a food fast restaurant? Or how about the dreaded Wal-Mart micros?

 

I hear about them in the forums but have never seen one or found one?

 

Are they real, an over-exaggeration of a "lame cache" or geocaching urban legend (like the photo of the cougar pouncing on top of the deer-with the photographer just feet from both)

 

 

The fun part of geocaching is going to new place and seeing how a cache is hidden (is it obvious to muggles or to us for that matter) and possibly the contents. We prefer traditionals smaller and up.

[+Tsmola]

I went looking for a cache today and I was led to a "park and ride" by the side of the highway, after looking for about 10 minutes I decided that it wasn't worth my time or energy and I deleted the waypoint as I left the lot.

 

You don't have to search for a cache if you don't like where it is taking you! Delete, move on and quit worrying about it. All people on these forums seem to do is complain about wanting new ways to filter caches they don't wanna find. I say, wait till you get to the location then decide if it's worth your time or not. I've been to some that from their description, didn't sound too interesting but turned out to be great. Then I've been to ones that had a very interesting looking description but turned out to be a little dull.

[+brodiebunch]

Could someone post the waypoint for a micro cache that is a film container hidden in a bush in the parking lot of a food fast restaurant? Or how about the dreaded Wal-Mart micros?

 

Finally found the Wally World micro caches pages here. Count us out.........

[+JanniCash]

That is why we have ratings and descriptions on cache pages.

 

We have cache owner self rated difficulty and terrain hints. Do you see manufacturer ratings or rather consumer ratings if you shop at Amazon? It would be much better if every visitor would leave ratings for terrain and difficulty and the cache page would show the average (and stddev) of those, instead of what the cache owner thinks they should be. But I guess gathering that sort of data would overload the MySquirrel database.

 

Jan

[+Glenn]

I went looking for a cache today and I was led to a "park and ride" by the side of the highway, after looking for about 10 minutes I decided that it wasn't worth my time or energy and I deleted the waypoint as I left the lot.

 

You don't have to search for a cache if you don't like where it is taking you! Delete, move on and quit worrying about it. All people on these forums seem to do is complain about wanting new ways to filter caches they don't wanna find. I say, wait till you get to the location then decide if it's worth your time or not. I've been to some that from their description, didn't sound too interesting but turned out to be great. Then I've been to ones that had a very interesting looking description but turned out to be a little dull.

 

If I want to be brought to some unremarkable and random location to look for some small item hidden in an uninspired location, I'll gp and hunt beckmarks (and I do so occasionally). If I want to be brought to a location that someone thinks is worth visiting (and I don't mean just to increase your find count), I used to go geocaching. Now I go Waymarking!

[+madajb]

Maybe I'm just a simp but, I like following my GPS, wherever it takes me. However, once I'm at the predetermined location, if it's more than a cursory look to find the cache, I get annoyed.

 

In other words, put a cache at the top of Mt. Everest and I'm going. But, when I get to the top, I'd better see that thing purched right on top of a snow mound.

 

If I gotta dig, I'll be pissed!

 

This is generally how I look at things as well.

Take me to a nice spot, and hide your ammo box well enough that a casual visitor won't see it.

But "multiple-pulley flip over this log to move the counter-weight while solving the quadratic equation in binary" type caches don't do it for me.

 

-ajb